


on behalf of the entire suit of the broken hearts

by mollivanders



Category: Psych
Genre: Alice In Wonderland AU, F/F, Fix-It, Second Chances, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: Doreen buys the rings for them on the last day of summer, before the California chill steals over Santa Barbara. She slides Alice’s onto her hand that night, uncharacteristically serious as they sit on Doreen’s bed. Alice watches her, memorizing every detail, as Doreen’s hands drift away.It feels like the most important promise they’ve ever made to each other.





	on behalf of the entire suit of the broken hearts

She dreams. She dreams from a jail cell, not unlike her mother’s, and sends a wish out into the universe.

 _Let it be a dream_.

She could wake and find this all to be a nightmare – an odd nightmare of pineapples and tar pits and psychics and candlelight, but a nightmare all the same. She shuts her eyes, falls asleep –

(She falls down the rabbit hole again.)

+

Her earliest and best memories have Doreen in them, and late at night, curled up under the covers of her childhood bed, Doreen whispers the same back to Alice. Her arms are snug around Alice’s waist; a reassuring comfort against the future rushing towards them.

(College is a _little_ bit scary but for all that, Alice knows she has always been moreso.)

“I never want to leave here,” Doreen murmurs against her neck and Alice shivers, gooseflesh rising on her arms. She cranes her neck back to look at Doreen, grinning.

“Then don’t,” she says, and turns around to catch Doreen’s smile with her lips. She’s warm and wonderful in Alice’s arms, in this place they’ve built for just the two of them. It’s easy to take the lead here, every kiss a miracle, the stumbling blocks long behind them now as Doreen falls back, flush with joy and something more.

“Is this okay?” Alice asks, as she’s asked a hundred times before, and Doreen nods, reaching up to pull Alice’s top off, hair flying askew.

“Come closer,” she whispers, pushing herself up to catch Alice’s lips, and the sound she makes against them fills a light inside Alice. Doreen is sweet and warm against her, and her smile turns to short gasps of breath as Doreen trails a path of kisses.

_Stay. Stay. Stay._

She casts the mantra out into the universe, stealing the girl she loves back from death.

(Stay here with me.)

This time, Doreen does.

+

The university is bright and loud and Alice squints against her senses, clutching her schoolbag tight. Doreen’s eyes are sparkling, thrilled by the newness of it all and Alice wishes she could match her joy.

Then again, Doreen isn’t taking Honors Engineering classes all semester.

“See you after class then,” Doreen says as they near their parting. Alice’s heart is thumping loudly, _1 – 2 – 3 – 4_ but just when she thinks Doreen is about to disappear she slows her steps and brushes Alice’s hair back from her face. They’d talked about boundaries on campus, about when to tell Doreen’s parents – if to tell her parents – but right now Alice just wants to pull Doreen close one more time.

“I’ll be here,” Alice says, smiling despite her nerves. She swallows hard as Doreen sneaks a glance around her before pulling Alice’s hand to her lips. It’s a quick touch of lips to skin that sets her afire and she stumbles backwards to class, and if it were anyone else but Doreen watching her she’d be blushing from head to toe.

“You better,” Doreen says, grinning, and walks away.

+

Everyone is surprised when Doreen pledges a sorority.

Everyone, even Alice.

(Even Alice, whose memories mix with dreams in alarming ways.)

“Are you sure, honey?” her mom asks over dinner and Doreen nods, shrugging as if it’s no big deal. A lump has formed in Alice’s stomach that she knows isn’t jealousy; it’s almost a memory; a déjà vu of what might have been.

“It’s a good idea,” her dad says, nodding at his daughter. “That’s what college is about. Making friends.”

“Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with, dear,” her mother says and Alice catches Doreen’s eye across the table. The lump in her stomach doesn’t go away after dinner, or even after she and Doreen fall asleep, tucked together as always.

(She needs to remember.)

+

Doreen buys the rings for them on the last day of summer, before the California chill steals over Santa Barbara. She slides Alice’s onto her hand that night, uncharacteristically serious as they sit on Doreen’s bed. Alice watches her, memorizing every detail, as Doreen’s hands drift away.

It feels like the most important promise they’ve ever made to each other.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Doreen says, eyes cast down to their joined hands and Alice brushes her thumb across Doreen’s skin comfortingly. “Especially this year.”

( _Every year_ , Alice thinks, and pushes the nightmare away.)

“It’s okay,” Alice murmurs, and leans closer to brush a kiss across Doreen’s lips, dropping her forehead against hers. “I’m not going anywhere.” Doreen smiles then, eyes still down but brighter, and Alice kisses her again – hopeful and sweet and again, and again, and for once she’s not thinking of engineering or memories or dreams or her mother, no, for the first time in weeks all that she can think of is how lovely Doreen is and how utterly, impossibly lucky she is to be here right now.

(She thinks – guesses, somehow, that they both are.)

+

She struggles through the first year. Her classes are hell, and she slowly shirks her other duties. It’s Christmas before she shows up at the prison where her mother’s been held for over a decade. She looks more haggard than usual and Alice shoves back the guilt that’s been building for months. She hadn’t sounded this bad on the phone; she hadn’t remembered her being this bad before.

(Somehow.)

“Hi, mom,” she says, and flinches under her mother’s careful study.

“You’re not sleeping,” her mother says, and purses her lips. “Are you eating? I read that freshmen girls – ”

“I’m fine, mom,” Alice interrupts, shifting on the uncomfortable plastic chair. “Honors Engineering is just really competitive.”

“I’m sure you’re top of your class,” her mother says, and for a moment the years of appeals, the case briefs, the wrongful conviction the whole family had argued about, falls away.

“Yeah,” Alice says, and her mouth twists. “So far. Doreen says hello.”

Even from inside prison walls, her mother is more astute to certain things than the Harthans ever were, an obvious glance to the ring on Alice’s hand.

“Give her my love,” her mother says, “and tell her to be careful too.”

+

They steal away when they can, between classes and sorority events, so Doreen can vent and Alice can be still. They lie on a blanket in the park, the sun bright above them even in the midst of winter, until finally they find some peace.

“Maybe we could do something else,” Alice whispers one day. “Go somewhere else.” She tilts her head on the blanket to look at Doreen, a defiant happiness burning under the surface. “Just say the word,” she adds, her voice a whisper.

Perhaps, under different circumstances, the Harthans would have understood. Perhaps, if Alice’s father hadn’t died and her mother hadn’t been sent to prison and she hadn’t been raised as their second daughter, she and Doreen could have – she wishes she had more faith.

“Maybe they’ll understand,” Doreen says quietly, curling her hand in hers. The comforting weight of their rings binds them together and Alice sighs.

“Maybe,” Alice says with a quirk of a smile, and for a second believes in second chances. She feels rooted to this one, the memory of loss and a nightmare drifting far from reality. Doreen smiles back, knowing, and bends over Alice to steal a kiss. Her bright hair falls around them, curtaining them from the world, from classes, from and family and expectation.

“So where would we go?” she asks, still bent over Alice, “if we go?” The wind ruffles Doreen’s hair in a cascade and Alice’s heart pounds hard in her chest with how much she wants to stay in this moment, here and now.

“San Francisco,” she says, and leans up to steal a kiss. “Portland.” Another. “Seattle.” Another.

(They end in a tumble, laughing as the dream of the future stretches out before them once again.)

+

Doreen finds her in the library, bleary eyed and bent over books as she studies alone.

“I’m supposed to go to Wispy Pines tonight,” Doreen whispers, and there’s a bit of fear in her eyes. Doreen is steel beneath the sweetness, but they’d grown up with the legend of Scary Sherry. “Alone.”

Alice starts, locking eyes with her as some awful premonition claws at her heart. She knows this nightmare; she’s walked these steps before.

_Wake up._

“Alone?” she bites, fearing more than hating the sorority and their games. “No. No, I’ll go with you.” She’s desperate, scrambling through her midterm fatigue. Not now. Not tonight.

“You can’t,” Doreen says, but her fists are clenched tight. “I have to stay alone or it doesn’t count. I just needed to tell you, I won’t be back until late.”

Alice is too tired for this, too tired to think, but the lump in her stomach that always comes with talk of the sorority is screaming in warning and she shakes her head, grabbing at Doreen’s hand and tugging her closer. Doreen’s ring is cool against her palm and she loops their hands together, _wishing_.

“Please, stay here, with me,” Alice says, “and to hell with them.” She doesn’t know what else to say; doesn’t know how to fight back against this loaded deck of half-formed nightmares and premonitions and memory. Doreen wavers, looking back at the door.

“You’ve given them everything, Doreen,” Alice whispers, looking up at her, and Doreen meets her gaze once more. “Please. Stay.”

_Stay._

(This time – she does.)

+

The rest of the semester runs out, highlighted only by a sorority girl falling down the ruined stairs at Wispy Pines and breaking both her legs. Doreen drops a gift basket off at the hospital but she stays the night with Alice, flipping through Craigslist for an apartment.

(When Doreen stole a kiss from her in the early sunlight, all Alice could feel was the dream of the future, and no nightmares.)

“I want an apartment with yellow paint,” Doreen says and laughs at Alice’s aghast face. “A _nice_ yellow. With sunflowers and roses and lots of sunlight and – ”

“Anything you want,” Alice says, opening another link. “As long as I can come with you.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Doreen says, smiling down at her, the sun catching in her hair.

Far away – another lifetime away – the dream comes true.

(The true Queen of Hearts reigns again.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> Is it time travel? Is it magic? Either way it's real in the fic; Alice and Doreen live HEA and Alice finally gets to forget the nightmare that came before. This is partly inspired by the fact that in [the original script for 'Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast' Alice and Doreen were a couple](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/post/149907335869/amysantjago-random-facts-from-the-psych-audio) and partly because remnants of that still show up enough in the episode that I wanted to give them a HEA. Aesthetic post [here](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/post/175197190499/on-behalf-of-the-entire-suit-of-broken-hearts).


End file.
